evolutionaryspiritualityfandomcom-20200215-history
Consolidate information
Several observations: * We're making pages with questions for titles. * We're not cross-referencing existing pages. That is, we are not establishing a link language, we're not building ideas on top of existing ideas. We're not consolidating information across our pages. Considering "Conscious Evolution" page Let's take the page conscious evolution for a moment, just because that's what I happen to have open in another tab. * Where it says "This page embraces all the ways evolution can be pursued consciously," the word "evolution" should be hyperlinked: "This page embraces all the ways evolution can be pursued consciously." * Where it says "On this wiki, the term conscious evolution refers to change undertaken intentionally as part of a larger progressive development -- especially informed by -- or as part of -- the epic of evolution or the Great Story of evolution." -- the "Great Story" should be hyperlinked: "On this wiki, conscious evolution refers to intentional change that is guided by the epic of evolution, or the Great Story." * Where it says "There is widespread concern that unconscious -- poorly understood, unwise, often unintentional -- developments in humanity's large scale activities are generating crises and potential catastrophes including extinctions, climate change, and unnecessary human suffering," you are introducing ideas, and it might be helpful to hyperlink a space for them. "There is widespread concern that unconscious developments in humanity's large scale activities, developments that are poorly understood, unwise, often unintentional, are generating crises and potential catastrophes including extinctions, climate change, and unnecessary human suffering." * "This has led to growing demand for more thoughtfully intentional development of social organization, technology, and even consciousness. The processes of nature, including the lessons of evolution, are rich with guidance for such development." Make it: "This has led to growing demand for intentional development of social organization, technology, and even consciousness. The process of nature, including the lessons of evolution, are rich with guidance for such development." See? You want to name the pages with things that you are going to refer back to, again, in the future. You want to build a link language. Hyperlink Everything Together You want to hyperlink everything together. You want it to all be connected, not like a series of disconnected pamphlets. Questions are really really bad page titles, because they're really hard to link back to. These are documents, not messages: We want to refer back to them. There are things to be mindful of, like forest fires. This is where someone disagrees with something that is embedded in a whole lot of pages, and then proceeds to argue about them on all those pages. It makes it very hard to follow the discussion, and it wrecks havoc on the wiki. (It's also extremely common for newbies to start forest fires, and it requires an explanation: "No, we're going to hold this debate in just one place. When we're done, we can go edit the rest of the wiki." But on the whole, you want a lot of cross linking within the wiki. Instead of naming a page: "What is a conscious social system?" ...which is very unlikely to be linked again (just for starters, it's too long, let alone being a question,) you want to instead name the page: "Conscious Social System." That way, whenever people are talking about conscious social systems, it can rereference that page, those ideas. How to Handle the Questions As it happens, we already have "conscious social systems." (I would have made it not plural, but this doesn't really matter a whole lot.) What does it say? It has a bunch of questions on it. Just de-link those questions. Let's look at it in a little detail. It says: * What is a conscious social system? * What makes a social system conscious? * Examples of conscious social systems * What are the implications of this idea for social change? All of these are linked. All but the third have page definitions. Here would be my judgement: * Define conscious social systems on the conscious social systems page. I mean, it's already got the title, so, that's where the idea should be described! People who are clicking on the phrase "conscious social systems" want to know what that idea is about. Leave out the stuff about the first evolutionary salon, in the definition. * If you really want to mention the first evolutionary salon, do it in a "see also" section at the bottom, with something like: "First Evolutionary Salon -- where we first convened around conscious social systems." That's all it needs. You can go into more detail on the "First evolutionary salon" page. * As for "what makes a social system conscious," either work it into the page, or not. If you don't work it into the page, call it "Factors of Conscious Social Systems," so that you can naturally link back into it. That said, that's not what I'd do. * To work in "What makes a social system conscious" into the "Conscious Social Systems" page, you make a brief section that says: "Factors." You say that you're describing the factors behind conscious social systems. You make a list on the page, and link the parts of the list to the factors you've identified: holistic awareness, sharing knowledge, sharing care, self-leadership, and evolvability. Don't go into too much great detail- that's for the individual pages, you see? Instead, describe (in half a sentence) what they are, and why it is that they lead to conscious social systems. Why those are the parts, and not something else. The focus on this page should be conscious social systems, not the details of parts. * As for the last one, "What are the implications of this idea for social change," just have a section at the end, that says what you think: "Our aim is to make it easier for society to be conscious of itself, and what it is doing. We are not taking one aim or another aim; Our interest here, in terms of conscious social systems, is in facilitating the whole process." (Or something like that.) Conclusions Now, I just chose this page, arbitrarily, to say: "Here's how to organize things to fit the wiki form." I realize that this was most likely a complete essay at once, and just broken into major parts. I'm trying to say here how we can further digest it into parts. This page is actually good seed posting; We just have to take it to the next level, now. Some of the basic ideas here are: * you're writing for wiki, which is a special form * page titles matter, they're important - you're building a link language * focus pages on specific ideas - and make sure each page tells a story, an interesting idea * delegating out comprehension of other ideas to other pages